sarahmichelef

I have a big list in my notebook of things I want to blog about, but I keep not doing it.  So instead I'll tell you about what we've been doing in the house & the garden.

House
We are still trying to chase down the mystery leak from the upstairs shower.  The plumber (new plumber, who is SO through an cautious and determined to figure out what in the heck is going on) thinks he's got all the plumbing-related problems licked, so now we have to do everything we can to keep water from getting out of the tub, because we're quite certain that it's getting down through the floor somewhere, probably right in the little corner where the wall, floor, and tub meet.  He suggested a bigger shower curtain and I decided we should also add a splash guard.  So yesterday we acquired TWO 72"x72" shower curtains and hung them both with 50% curtain overlap (and, clever me, the seam between them facing the back of the tub) and added the splash guard.  Haven't tested it yet because the adhesive on the guard needed 24 hours to cure before use and I'm not inclined to skimp on that, given the consequences.  If this solves the problem, Pat the Plumber will send someone back to close up the hole in the study ceiling and then we'll have to paint it.

We're also getting ready to winterize the house.  Last weekend when we went to buy Seal 'N Peel at Lowe's they looked at us like we were crazy, as if no such thing had ever existed.  Tried Home Depot this weekend, similar reaction.  We decided to try at Valu as well and lo and behold, despite them looking at us and going, "removable caulk?  I've never seen any such thing", we found it (it's a different brand, but the same stuff).  So yay, we bought three tubes and that should do us for the winter, and if not - we know where to get it.

Garden
Last weekend we did a bunch of mulching as well as ripping out of M's and my annual garden.  Last weekend and this, TRex and I put in a bunch of crocuses along the border in M's and my garden (we ultimately want it to be all perennials) and in a couple of other places, as well as pulling out a mess of weeds under the shrubberies in the backyard and mulching under there.  Then today when TRex really REALLY wanted to dig and was very mad when we wouldn't let her dig up all the crocus bulbs that we had just put in.  So we moved on to the next project: beginning to break ground for the vegetable garden we're putting in next spring.  Currently TRex wants to plant bell peppers, tomatoes, and cucumbers.  We'll see what we actually do and how much produce we actually get come spring.  M broke the sod for the outline of a plot about 6'x3' in the side yard, and then extracted about 1/3 of the sod from the interior of it.  TRex and I crumbled dirt out of the grass roots and then later moved the cut sod to the side of the house where we need some back-fill.  Later this afternoon, while I was making dinner, TRex and M spent quite a bit of time playing pirates and digging for buried treasure in there, so the 1/3 of it where the sod is broken has been well churned up.  The plan is to finish breaking up the sod over the next while and then dig in some compost and put in some garlic around the edges this fall.

So we finally got the right parts for the upstairs toilet - it took three tries because the toilet is ANCIENT - it has a built in overflow valve and the hole where the flapper goes isn't flush with the bottom of the tank - there's a little ceramic ring that prevents most modern fittings from working.  What we ended up with was a system where you basically adhere the flapper assembly to that ceramic ring with some fun gray putty (and we all know I AM the queen of gray putty, so I got to do that part) and pray that it creates a good seal.  We replaced the float as well, because the original one had gotten damaged when we removed it.

So we got everything in, got a good seal on the new flapper and on Korky (because we know how Korky works...) and set the tank to fill again.  All was ducky.  Then we flushed.

There wasn't a flood, thankfully, but there was clearly water.  Turns out that the gasket between the tank and the bowl was bad, but it took a visit from the plumber to figure that out. 

Was it bad before we messed with things?  Possibly - we had wondered if there had been a slow leak somewhere that was the REAL source of the occasional water that we've had in the study.  Also possible that we damaged it in removing and replacing the tank.

I figure we learned something about plumbing, and the total cost (assuming our time is free) was about the same as it would have been had we just called Joe to replace the flapper in the first place.

Clarification of my previous post:  guess what, Flock's blog editor doesn't work when you don't give it the right login credentials.  I am a genius, I am.

Second, I have gone on at length about my dislike for water when it comes to my house.  It always seems to get in places it doesn't belong.  This makes me exceedingly angry, far too frequently for my taste (i.e., ever).  More often than not, this means calling the plumber.  I don't like calling the plumber.  This time, though, we done fixed it ourselves.

See, the float in our downstairs (main floor) toilet had been slowly going bad.  Y'know, not shutting off the water when it was supposed to.  At first it was just a trickle, but over the past couple of weeks it had gotten to the point that it was dumping water into the overflow CONSTANTLY, and not in small quantities.  So when we left on vacation, I just shut off the water to the toilet and figured we'd fix it when we got home from MD.  So today, I went to Lowe's and met our new friend Korky (well, minus the flapper bit).  This evening, we gave the old assembly the boot and put in the new one.  It took a couple of tries to get it right and me taking things apart that probably technically didn't need disassembling (I pulled the feeder pipe out of the floor at one point), but last time we checked there was no water anywhere there's not supposed to be water.

We are plumbers, hear us ROAR!